


Aphelion

by cerie



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:37:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Druitt hadn't been the only one to love her and she hadn't been the only one to love him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aphelion

“There was nothing you could have done differently, Helen. Surely you must know that.”

Their usual positions were reversed, Helen settled into James’ hideous leather chair with a tumbler of scotch cupped in her hands and James straight-backed and perched on the couch she usually favored. They were in his parlor, ostensibly too late for a polite visit, but Helen had long since given up on ever being socially acceptable. She had, in fact, been engaged some years before to a man who’d turned out to be the worst murderer London had ever seen and that black mark coupled with the few she’d racked up at Oxford (doctor, scientist…not things that went with woman) had ensured she’d never see her own season or give her own balls.

Helen hardly cared for that frippery, not when the real stuff of life was beneath the glisten and gleam of satin skirts and silken cravats, but she supposed her father would have liked to see her married, at the least, if not a happy mother with children clinging at her skirts. She laughed, hollow; Nikola and Nigel hardly counted as children, no matter how they still clung to her skirts. The elder Dr. Magnus looked at James sometimes in a certain way and James looked to him too, both of them exchanging a look that Helen didn’t necessarily like. She didn’t need a man. She simply wanted one.

“I don’t like losing patients, James. You’ve always known that about me.” He nodded, silent, and drew closer, his hand on hers. She wasn’t wearing gloves, having removed them to tend to Adam’s daughter, and his thumb brushed against her bare skin. Some years ago, well before she’d ever come to Oxford, a different Helen Magnus might have blushed and snatched her hand away, confused by the swell of feelings such a touch elicited. Fifteen years, give or take, had changed her and she barely registered that touch. Not when she’d had John Druitt consume her inside and out. Not when she’d let something of herself die the night she’d discovered his true nature.

“You’re feeling guilty, Helen. It’s hardly your fault,” James said easily, squeezing her hand before retreating back to the couch, settling in a lazy sprawl that had always seemed at home on John Druitt and patently ridiculous on James Watson. She saw much of the old John in James, more than she should really given the circumstances, but in this they were polar opposites. His fingers were deft as they unstopped the decanter and poured out his own measure of scotch, neat and not watered like Helen’s, and she caught herself watching him furtively. She could have watched him openly, she supposed, but the demure still had a hold on her when she was unsettled.

“You’ve always been guilty about denying Adam his place among us and you’ve always been the heart of us, Helen. You knew, certainly, that had you asked, John or myself would have gone and handled that task for you. But it would never do for you, who is always so careful about her feelings and those of others, to pawn off such a cruel task on those who hardly had the compassion you had. So you did it yourself, just as you took on the mantle of an impossible case, and you feel guilty not at the idea of failing Adam, but at failing yourself. Such as with John, et cetera, et cetera.”

He delivered it so easily, so coolly, as if she were one of the criminals he deduced and tracked down and made a fool of in the papers. About her! He had sat there and discussed some of her darkest memories with nothing more than a flourish and a fine delivery and something about it angered her, the sharp words rising in her throat and, to her chagrin, choking off in a half-sob. He’d been right. He was always right, the bastard, and it was one of the things she’d always loved about him.

“I’ll thank you not to speak so callously about me and my personal feelings in the future, James Watson.” Cold, yes, but marred by the barest of trembles in her voice. She hated to cry, even if it was acceptable enough in a woman and might have made society think she did have something of the softness a woman was meant to have, but she hated it. Helen Magnus prided herself on temperance and control and here, half drunk and beside herself in grief, she was anything but temperate and controlled. James, who needed nothing of his perception to know he’d struck her hard, crossed the room to sit in front of her chair, laying his head against her lap for a moment. It was a terribly familiar gesture, but not one that had never happened before.

“You weren’t the only one of us to love John Druitt, Helen.” James’ tone was slightly sharp, acid beneath his normally warm and pleasant tone and she felt the guilt wash over her anew. She knew that while her relationship with John had been the most intimate, the others had lost a dear friend and compatriot. Had she been so blinded by grief, a widow in practice if not truth, that she’d made them all feel that their own pain was lessened? She hoped not.

“And he wasn’t the only one to love you, Helen. I failed a man that I love fiercely as a brother. I failed to see what he’d become, failed to find a way to stop him. In that, I carry as much guilt as you. But instead of sharing the yoke with me and sharing our burden of that grief, you want to carry it all alone. Let me shoulder it for you, Helen, at least for a time. Let me see you happy once again without having to see the tinge of sadness just beneath the veneer. I think you deserve so much more than the mask you put on to fool us all.”

Helen was silent for a moment before she let one hand drift into his hair, fingertips sliding amongst the thick locks and thinking for a fleeting moment of what it’d be like if it was John sitting here now, John with the beautiful apologies falling from his lips instead of James. Did she want it to be John, even still? Part of her was unsure; after discovering what he’d done and how he’d done it, Helen had told him with no small measure of vitriol that she never wanted to see him again.

And while not her first choice, in so many ways James had become the man that Helen always thought John would be. He escorted her to the necessary galas, was her partner in work and social engagements and was a comforting shoulder to cry on, her dearest confidante. He had never married, her James, and while Helen (and others) had enquired after it, he never had a real reason for his eternal bachelorhood. Instead, he forsook matrimony and its benefits to orbit her, a planet never too far from its sun. Helen cupped his chin, tipped his face up to see it.

“I don’t want to be John Druitt’s widow any longer.” It was a short statement, but telling all the same. If James was shocked by her choice in phrase he said nothing, merely circled her wrist with his fingers and drew her own fingers to his lips, kissing each in turn. Helen had been to bed with John Druitt more than once, had been initiated into the mystery that was sexual intimacy many years prior and yet, this touch, this soft brush of lips against the pad of her fingers and the scrape of beard against her palm, this was enough to elicit a gasp and a spark in a part of her long-thought to be dead, buried with John Druitt when he became the Ripper.

“I don’t want to live in his shadow,” James returned, kissing her palm until Helen felt longing well up and wash over her, like a river breaking the dam for the first time in so many years. She trembled with it, the fierceness of the feeling, and it was different from John and somehow the same. She didn’t quite know what to do with that or how to analyze it so she put it away for a little while, deciding to just live in the moment for once. She tugged at his lapels, trying to pull him up to kiss him properly.

She wanted to stand but couldn’t find her feet and James ended up kissing her while half-kneeling, the position awkward in contrast to the concert of the kiss. There were no crescendos, no thrilling passages like it might have been with John but it was steady and melodic and full of solace, which Helen supposed was more necessary in this moment than any grand overture might have been. His hands tugged her upward with him, bringing them to stand, and he spanned her waist with his hands as he kissed her, deepening it from the gentle exploration of earlier. James Watson was a man of passion, but of intellectual curiosities and not the physical. He kissed like he did anything else, with single-minded devotion, and Helen couldn’t help but be swept away by it, the last of her hesitations ebbing away.

His fingers were deft over her clothes, nimble as they explored and tried to figure out how, exactly, to best attack undressing her. The thought that he’d do so right in the parlor where anyone could see thrilled her a little, made her wonder what sorts of things went on in James Watson’s parlor when she and Tesla weren’t occupying it with days’ worth of research, and she took in a sharp little breath. James caught that (when wouldn’t he have?) and laughed a little, nuzzling at her cheek before whispering hotly against her ear.

“I’m hardly going to have you out in the parlor on a secondhand rug, Helen. I was just trying to best work out how to ask you up to my rooms or if you would rather take us back to your own house.”

Dear God. Helen laughed a little to release the tension and stepped back just a little, sliding one of her slim hands into his larger one. She squeezed it lightly to reassure him that this was the course of action she wanted to take, that the route had been plotted and she was comfortable with the heading. James seemed to understand it without speaking it aloud and nodded once, leading her up into the part of the house she’d never actually been in before. Most of her meetings with James had been in the parlor or the kitchens; she’d never been to his private quarters because it was unacceptable as a woman and she liked to keep her reputation as unmarred as possible.

He led her into his bedroom and turned the key in the lock, a final reminder that this was the point of no return. She hadn’t, since John, and she wondered inanely if that meant she’d have no talent for it. John had always been pleased with her, had always looked down at her with a wicked delight and a playfulness that had always eased her nerves. James had none such playfulness and she imagined she didn’t either, melancholy and opaque after years of loving a ghost.

He took care with her clothes, vest first and then followed by blouse, his hands almost reverent when she stepped out of her skirt and petticoat and had nothing but drawers, chemise and corset left to conceal herself. She’d eschewed stockings in spite of the chill still clinging to the air that day and idly wished she hadn’t when James backed her against the bed, bare fingertips traversing skin long untouched as he traced her legs and gently pushed her knees apart. Perhaps that would have given her one more layer to draw this out, to lengthen the anticipation. He kissed her knee before turning back to her clothes, pulling away fabrics and laces with a measure of care that John had never really taken. How many times had he burst the stays on her corset in his eagerness? How many times had he had her in her corset, too impatient to undress her?

Helen swallowed thickly and closed her eyes as James tugged at the pins in her hair and unwound the braids, combing her hair out so it spread across the pillow like sunshine slanting through the shades in late afternoon. He smiled then, seemingly satisfied in how he’d arranged her, and undressed so quickly that Helen barely had time to get lost in thought once more. His hands had no tremble as he mapped out the planes of her body, seemingly memorizing each curve, each hollow.

He touched for long, aching moments, his fingertips barely enough to give her anything other than a taste of what was to come and Helen hated him for prolonging it. It would be easier to do this quickly, sharply and yet James nearly demanded her full attention, one hand cupping her chin as the other explored between her legs, thumb and fingers grazing against part of her that had known no touch but her own in those years between John and now. He bent his head to her breast, beard scraping against sensitive skin and tongue curling around one nipple. She arched her hips, surprised at the sensation, and was rewarded by his fingers pressing and crooking into her. The tandem of sensation was nothing she’d ever been able to achieve on her own and she nearly wept, overcome. She tasted desire and saw music, synapses overloaded and perceptions re-wired like some strange circuitry.

“I don’t think you’re quite ready yet, my dear. Best to do something about that.” Helen lifted her head from the pillows and watched him curiously, fascinated when James lifted her legs over his shoulders and cupped her bottom to tug her down toward his mouth. She’d had this done before, she having found it in a French book and showing it to John, who insisted that proper explanation of the words on the page required a demonstration. But John hadn’t kept his beard as thick as James nor had he taken his time to inhale her scent, to run his tongue over her until she was begging in anticipation. Her protests fell on deaf ears, only serving to have James tug her that much closer, and she fell apart under his mouth.

The release made her bold and she tugged at him until he lay beside her, smirking as she ran a hand down his body to circle his cock. James nuzzled at her hair, whispering soft little intimacies as she took her time to get acquainted with him, to get acquainted with them in the new roles they’d chosen. When he was flushed and panting, nearly about to lose control, he grasped her wrist in a vice grip, giving her a tight smile.

“Stop, Helen, lest I spill right here.” She laughed at that and shook her head, demure when she had no right to be. He tugged her astride him, his big hands at her hips to steady her as she slid down on him and when she’d taken him completely inside her he skated them up her waist to cup her breasts. She liked this, being in charge of it, being in control of the pace. So few times had she ever done this with John, so often being beneath him or on her hands and knees as he came into her from behind and this, this was something she liked. James liked it too, she thought, watching him with a boldness she didn’t feel as she increased her pace, muscles stretching and relaxing.

Her thighs quivered when she felt the first erratic jerk of him beneath her, his hands holding her still as he arched into her as he finished. His thumbs would leave bruises and Helen found she didn’t mind that, not overly so, and she would ask him to kiss each little mark next they were together. And they would be together again, she’d decided, even before the heat of this night had faded and she’d curled around him safe and warm because John Druitt hadn’t been the only one to love her.

And she hadn’t been the only one to love him.


End file.
